Before debating skills vs. equipment, please consider Risk Compensation

[TSandM]

In chewing over this very interesting idea, and reading Reg's posts, I had this thought: I don't know very many people who carry pony bottles, but I know a whole bunch of people who have gone to extensive training to ensure that they are reliable buddies with adequate gas reserves for emergencies. But what has come with that is actually a HIGH degree of caution, pre-planning, and risk aversion -- Or did the people who sought out that solution START as cautious, risk averse planners? Does the selection of equipment or skill based solution for a problem sort by personality type, and is the equipment-prone type more likely to engage in risk compensatory behaviors?

 

[don Francisco]

Reg raises an important point discussing a critical aspect of the human element. His example of ABS brakes is only one of many documented examples where the addition of a new safety factor changed human behavior.

All of us have a personal threshold of risk, which like the threshold of pain varies person to person, but whatever our personal threshold is, we'll adjust our conduct to stay near the edge of our threshold. We do it onconsciously, but it we do it everyday in all types of situations.

An interesting and important aspect of this phenomenon is that it isn't the actual risk that determines behavior but rather it is the perception of risk that's the controling factor. Thus, if there is an illusion of reduced risk, for example by the introduction of what to appears to be a safety net, the unconsious adjustments folks make will have the effect of placing them at increased risk.

 

[gcbryan]

In chewing over this very interesting idea, and reading Reg's posts, I had this thought: I don't know very many people who carry pony bottles, but I know a whole bunch of people who have gone to extensive training to ensure that they are reliable buddies with adequate gas reserves for emergencies. But what has come with that is actually a HIGH degree of caution, pre-planning, and risk aversion -- Or did the people who sought out that solution START as cautious, risk averse planners? Does the selection of equipment or skill based solution for a problem sort by personality type, and is the equipment-prone type more likely to engage in risk compensatory behaviors?

I think personality type is a big part in all of these discussions although I would disagree with your lumping people into equipment-prone high risk vs skill based risk adverse people.

Everyone is risk adverse as they define it and equipment prone people also value skill.

However, how one sees and defines these things I think is based on personality. I also think that risk aversion strategies are based on perceived risk which may or may not be the same as actual risk.

I may think that my overall risk is less than yours. I use a pony and you don't. You dive in caves I don't. You perceive that your training more than negates the added cave penetration risk or the lack of a need for a pony bottle. I don't see it that way. Who knows if I'm statistically right or if you are. But the choices I make are determined by my personality and on my perceptions of what is risk as are your choices.

 

[Monkey_Gland]

Does it follow then, that the more qualified you are the greater risk you are to yourself?

Are c-cards like pony bottles and make people feel safer than they should (if they do...)

And any more Brit bashing will be met with snorts of disdain and dark muttering into cups of tea BEHIND YOUR BACK BRAITHWAITE!

 

[TSandM]

I think personality type is a big part in all of these discussions although I would disagree with your lumping people into equipment-prone high risk vs skill based risk adverse people.

Sorry; I didn't mean to imply that people who choose equipment solutions are rash. I was just wondering if equipment solutions, being rather more concrete and to some extent, more easily adopted (than skill-based solutions, which take time and work to develop), might lend themselves more to risk compensation behaviors.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

I think the aspects of "perceived risk" and "perceived safety" are critical. Going back to automobiles again, I recall reading that SUVs and other light trucks in private use are involved in more accidents than sedans because people (a) perceive that they are safer, and b) do not appreciate the fact that a heavier vehicle with a high center of gravity must be driven more cautiously.

My anecdotal example: I owned a house in the 'burbs a few years back. Every Winter after the first snow, I would stand at the bus stop in the morning. There was a stop sign at the intersection. Every few minutes a car would come along, slow, stop, and move forward. A minivan would come along, slow, stop, and move forward. An SUV would come along at full speed with 4WD active, hit the brakes at the last second, and slide right through the intersection with its ABS furiously ticking.

To be sure, it would slide *straight* through the intersection, the ABS saw to that. But the drivers were oblivious to what the ABS can and cannot do, what the 4WD can and cannot do. The heavier vehicle has a much higher mass to friction ratio, so it needs much longer to stop in the rain or on snow. Period. But this is not what those drivers believed, they believed their vehicle was safer than a sedan or minivan in every way, and thus they believed they were safer driving an SUV than driving a sedan or minivan.

And I swear I saw the same drivers doing the same thing year after year. When given the choice between what they thought their SUV ought to do and what it actually did, they went with their hopes and dreams. As Groucho Marx once said, "Who you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?" I believe he would have made an excellent SUV salesman.

Does this apply to Pony Bottles? Honestly I am not saying that. I am just trying to suggest that Rick Compensation should be in the conversation when talking about things like Pony Bottles. It doesn't mean we are wasting our time with safer equipment, just that we have to think about how people perceive their equipment before trying to predict how they will behave.

 

[Slonda828]

Does the selection of equipment or skill based solution for a problem sort by personality type, and is the equipment-prone type more likely to engage in risk compensatory behaviors?

You have an interesting thought process on this, and one which provokes introspection. Speaking solely from my own experience in diving, which is obvious less extensive than yours, I find that there is a continuum in my equipment decisions. When I was less skilled (and aware of it) I relied more on equipment to make up for that. As I practiced and became better, my kit bag began to contain less.

I would be remiss if I also didn't mention that as I began to get more dives under my belt, I began to recognize more external risk factors. I never dive in overhead environments, but if I did, I would only ever do so on fully independent doubles. So I feel like we have two forces at work in equipment selection, perception of comfort and ideas based upon external risk.

Where am I going with this? I think that your gear selections and modality are personality based. If you are willing to tolerate more danger to yourself (not that I am glamorizing that), then I'm sure that is visible somewhere and at some level in your kit bag. If you are more or less willing then the median to not have a plan in place for common external risk factors, then that is reflected as well. I typically do not use an alternate second stage for example. One could also gather from this that I do all of my diving within NDL and I have a good buddy (my girlfriend) whom I am willing to trust my life with.

Look at how Cousteau dove, I would say that he had a personality that was more tolerant of risk than average diver's. However, look at what he accomplished. For every 50 super safe people, there has to be one willing to do something dangerous. IMO, that's how science advances, wars are won, etc.

 

[seaducer]

Sorry; I didn't mean to imply that people who choose equipment solutions are rash. I was just wondering if equipment solutions, being rather more concrete and to some extent, more easily adopted (than skill-based solutions, which take time and work to develop), might lend themselves more to risk compensation behaviors.

I think it may be closer to not all of x type people are z, but all z type people are x.

In this case, the people who prefer to extend their risk when adopting new safety concepts are probably all using equipment to compensate, but not all people who choose equipment do so because they are pushing the envelope further.

This may be slightly skewed when you consider someone from the reckless crowd takes a course, and suddenly wakes up and becomes more conservative again. I wonder if some people who are pushing things in diving do so not realizing how close to the edge they are. Even the more complex diving really lends itself to somoene who is prone to complacency.
Training tends to illustrate the potential risks more so than the warning tag on a pony bottle.

 

[grazie42]

Sorry; I didn't mean to imply that people who choose equipment solutions are rash. I was just wondering if equipment solutions, being rather more concrete and to some extent, more easily adopted (than skill-based solutions, which take time and work to develop), might lend themselves more to risk compensation behaviors.

A rational individual would propably choose the solution that allows them to risk-compensate the most(even if the choice is made subconsciously). If you have a bias that allows you to risk-compensate more for either equipment or skill then you get more "fun"(=utility) for the solution you have a bias for while maintaining the perception of equal risk(everything else being equal)...

 

[captain]

I started diving at a time when most of the equipment used today to mitigate risk didn't exist. My experience has led to my belief that equipment failure or going OOA, neither of which I have ever experienced, is a remote possibility for me. Because of that I do not and never have used an octo or pony. Some will say it is risky behavior but to me it isn't.